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Off the Grid reviews Zombie Fluxx

Scott Jon Siegel — 2007-11-15T12:15:00+00:00

Filed under: Reviews

Every other week Scott Jon Siegel contributes Off the Grid, a column about card games, board games, and everything else non-digital.

I'm a little late for Halloween, but that shouldn't mean I have to miss out on all the spooky fun. Luckily, Looney Labs have sent along Zombie Fluxx, a standalone expansion to their ever-popular card game with the ever-changing rules.

Zombie Fluxx isn't just a clever re-skinning of the original, but rather a new set of rules and cards built on to the existing mechanics. The base game remains the same: 2-6 players amend and append the game's starting rules, while attempting to win by collecting Keepers to meet the conditions of the goal, which is constantly in a state of, well, you know.

This time around, Looney Labs have included some new mechanics to spice up the gameplay. Zombies enter the fray as "Creeper" cards. Unlike the helpful Keepers the Creepers can actually prevent players from winning, as some goals dictate that a player needs to be zombie-free to claim victory. Unlike all other cards, Creepers go immediately into play once drawn, rather than into the player's hand, making every draw from the deck a possible immediate zombie encounter.

Combating Creepers are special Keeper cards, such as the baseball bat, or the car. While these Keepers can be used to win the game, they can also be used as weapons to eliminate zombies, provided the right rule card is in play.

And therein lies the primary problem with Zombie Fluxx: as potentially exciting as the new features are, most of the game plays out very similarly to the original. While some Goal cards clearly state that the winning player can not have any zombies, other Goals simply don't, meaning that having an army of zombies can often have no consequence on who wins. And the Keeper cards that double as weapons are only usable once one particular rule card comes into play -- why bother having a baseball bat if you're not allowed to swing it?

The zombie features are great in theory, but in practice feel poorly executed. A special "un-Goal" card in the deck dictates that if a certain number of zombies are in play, the game ends and everyone loses. This could add an interesting cooperative element, except that no player would willingly play that card if it were in their hand, and the un-Goal could quickly be vetoed by any other Goal card.

Normally a purely competitive game experience, the introduction of zombies into the Fluxx equation seems to be a conscious step in the direction of collaborative play. What if the game-ending un-Goal card were always in play? What if, amidst trying to claim victory, all the players had to cooperate to make sure they don't all lose? Sadly, with the current (and constant) rules that ship with Zombie Fluxx, the game is still Fluxx as we all know it, albeit a little greener.

Final Verdict: Those who liked the original Fluxx are going to enjoy Zombie Fluxx just as much. Those who weren't fans of the first, however, won't care for this undead iteration much either.

Scott Jon Siegel is an fledgling game designer, a professional blogger, and a mediocre cook. His words and games can be found at numberless, and he promises to review something non-Looney next time. What will it be? He's not telling.

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Off the Grid reviews Chrononauts

Scott Jon Siegel — 2007-08-23T13:25:00+00:00

Filed under: Reviews, Strategy

Every other week Scott Jon Siegel contributes Off the Grid, a column on gaming away from the television screen or monitor.

Looney Labs -- makers of Fluxx and those bizarre Icehouse pieces -- are once again in their element with Chrononauts, a time-traveling card game that is almost too clever to work. Almost.

Unlike other games, it's the complexity of Chrononauts that saves it from mediocrity. With a heady central "timeline" mechanic, and a 44-page booklet of rules that reads like an operations manual for the Flux Capacitor, it would be pretty easy for the crunchy game to fold under the weight of its own ambition. Luckily for Looney, time travel was never meant to be easy, and it's too damn fun hopping through history to allow a little bit of complexity to get in the way.

In Chrononauts, players act out the roles of paradox repairmen, assigned to repair the rips and tears in the time-space fabric created by their own cavorting. At the same time, each chrononaut is also carrying out a few side missions during their travels: every player is commissioned to locate three special artifacts from across time, while also trying to make it home to their own unique alternate reality. By completing any of these three tasks -- repairing enough paradoxes, collecting three artifacts, or setting the timeline properly -- a player wins the game.

The problem is that each of these tasks requires an entirely different mode of gameplay to complete. Looney Labs readily admits to the complexity of Chrononauts, going so far as to suggest beginning players skip the full game, and instead play two pared-down mini-games -- Solonauts and Artifaxx -- to get a better handle on the rules. For better or for worse, a lot of the game's complexity is due to the "timeline" mechanic, which is by far the most compelling and rewarding element of the game.

The timeline is composed of 32 cards, each depicting an important historical event from 1865 all the way up to 1999. Certain timeline cards, called "linchpins," can be directly affected by the players (Lincoln's assassination can be averted, for example, or the attack on Pearl Harbor can be called off). Changing one of these linchpin events also causes ripples in the timeline, turning other events into paradoxes (the Great Depression can only occur if World War I begins, which only happens after the Archduke Ferdinand is killed). Too many paradoxes can cause the game to end, so players must play "patch" cards to fix the paradoxes, altering history to coordinate with the changes made at the linchpins.

The system is confusing to grasp and difficult to manage, but ultimately fascinating due to its complexity. What's more, the interweavings of various major events gives a very particular view on history, most likely that of Andy Looney and the game's other creators. If Chrononauts is true, then Germany would have won WWII if the attack on Pearl Harbor had been canceled, and the failed assassination of John Lennon could have prompted a ban on firearms and prevented the shootings at Columbine. Sometimes obvious, and sometimes controversial, a hop through history with Chrononauts is definitely a conversation-starter, if nothing else.

Unfortunately, Chrononauts often plays like two separate but parallel games, instead of one whollistic design. Altering history and fixing paradoxes both work cleanly within the timeline mechanic, but collecting artifacts fails to involve the timeline in any way, and plays out like a watered down version of Fluxx. While adding a bit more color to the product, the artifacts at times still feel like an afterthought, and one wishes they took any advantage of the patented time-traveling mechanic.

But again, luckily for the folks at Looney Labs, the solidity of the timeline more than makes up for the game's other flaws. It's always possible to be too clever, but Looney dodges the bullet this time and ends up with a surprisingly fun, if a bit overloaded, title.

Final Verdict: Card-game virtuosos and wannabe time-travelers are encouraged to take it for a spin, but we urge you to read the manual first; once this baby hits 88, you're gonna see some serious shit.

Scott Jon Siegel is a fledgling game designer, and fancies himself a bit of a writer on the topic as well. His words and games can be found at numberless, which is almost always a work in progress.

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Pink Godzilla Dev Kit back in stock, prettier than ever

Scott Jon Siegel — 2007-08-02T22:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture, Strategy

Shortly after Joystiq reviewed Pink Godzilla Dev Kit, the game went out of stock (Coincidence? We think not!). In the interim, Pink Godzilla Games have been working on a brand new version of the video game-themed card game, with higher quality printing and packaging, and some slight tweaks to the rules. The brand-new, revamped version of PG Dev Kit is now available for purchase, either at the funky Pink Godzilla game store in Seattle, or online.

For the un-initiated, Pink Godzilla Dev Kit is a card game about developing video games. Published by the video game store (and ping-pong players) Pink Godzilla Games, the game features a central "game development" mechanic, and parodies a variety of existing video game properties.

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Off the Grid interviews Cheapass Games' James Ernest

Scott Jon Siegel — 2007-07-16T10:28:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture, Portable, Wireless, Strategy, Interviews

Every other week Scott Jon Siegel contributes Off the Grid, a column on gaming away from the television screen or monitor.

We've been paying a lot of attention to James Ernest over the past few weeks. As the founder, president, and lead game designer at Cheapass Games, he's responsible for a slew of analog games, including Diceland, Enemy Chocolatier, Kill Doctor Lucky, and many others. Despite his busy schedule, Ernest was able to answer a few questions for Off the Grid, and allow us to pick his brain on a variety of topics.

Let's talk a bit about your history. How did you start doing game design? What brought you into the field?

There's probably a fine line between "designing" and "making up" games. I've been making them up forever. In high school I actually designed a chess variant as a key plot element in a fantasy novel. It's not so much a chess variant as a "game you can play with chess pieces," since all the pieces have different moves and different names. I was so interested in making sure the game worked that I spent most of my time testing the game, and not much time working on the novel. I eventually published the game as "Tishai" through Cheapass Games, first as a stand-alone title and later as part of a Chief Herman collection. The novel is, well, pretty much nowhere.

From what I understand, you left Magic: The Gathering publisher Wizards of the Coast to start Cheapass Games. What sort of work were you doing at Wizards, and what prompted the change?

I did work for Wizards of the Coast in various jobs from 1993-1995, but it was never the job I wanted. There was a round of layoffs in 1995 and I volunteered to be among them. At that point I'd designed one CCG that Wizards had optioned (they never published it), and I was building up a collection of original games that I was pretty sure I'd never sell, either to Wizards or anyone else. So I took some of those games and a couple of new ones, and started Cheapass Games in 1996.

As a game designer, you have a very recognizable style. That is, you focus as much on the theme or narrative of a game as you do on the mechanics and game system. How do you believe this style developed? Do you find it makes for stronger games?

I think the approach of starting with the story creates stronger intellectual property, whether or not it creates stronger games. My opinion is that story (or the lack of it) is the first thing a new player learns about a game; it's the reason he decides to learn more. I've always thought that with a good hook (which could be great story, great buzz, great pieces, or anything great) you get a player's attention for long enough to teach him the rules. I also think that good stories are a lot harder to create than good game mechanics, so when you think of the story first, the hard part is out of the way.

I have been in far too many meetings that go like this: "Okay, we have a finished game mechanic, now what's it about?" People stare at each other dumbly, then grasp at straws until they compromise on the least horrible thing they can come up with, and the story never fits the game. But when the meeting starts "Okay, let's do a game about X, how would that work?" it usually results in a storm of great ideas for game mechanics, far more than you could ever cram into one game. If it doesn't, I try a new theme.

As for my recognizable style, I've had the luxury of creating a unique voice and character for Cheapass Games. Creating that look and feel was challenging, but rewarding. Sometimes that style is appropriate when I do work for other publishers; sometimes it isn't.

Let's play favorites! Out of all the games produced by CAG, what's your all-time favorite, and why?

But... they are all my children! No seriously, I'll be the first to tell you that some of those games are awful. I'd have to say that Diceland is my favorite, especially the Space sets, just because it was fun to test and continues to be really fun to play. As products go, Diceland isn't that successful, but the people who like it really, really like it. Other favorites include FALLING, BRAWL, Button Men, One False Step for Mankind, and The Big Idea. I love listening to a group of people who are really into a game of The Big Idea.

And your favorite non-CAG, non-digital game?

Poker. I play it all the time. I'd be playing poker online right now if it weren't a class C felony. As it stands I have to be content with the occasional trip to the local card room. In Las Vegas.

Do you play a lot of digital games? What are some of your favorite, and why?

I'm working in the electronic games industry right now, and I certainly play a lot of them. I've been a console gamer forever; I saved my pennies to buy an Atari 2600 and I've owned more or less every console system since then. Right now I waste most of my time playing arcade games and puzzle games, though I'll play almost anything. I like how the electronic games people call their games "interactive." It confused me for quite a while, since they're hardly as interactive as playing with real humans. It's like calling beer "drive better drink."

At the moment, how do you feel non-digital games are doing in the market? Is there cause for concern? Do video games pose a threat to the future of analog games?

I think it's a mistake for paper game publishers to equate their market to the market for digital games, or to think there's some sort of direct conflict between them. Are movies impacting gaming? Are sporting events? Is the Internet? You bet. We are all different branches of the entertainment business, and there's room for both digital and paper games to thrive or fail side by side. Look at what's happening in the poker world: is online poker killing live games? Do people play less with each other when they can watch it on TV? Of course not. The real danger for the paper game market is itself: it's always been small, and it's probably going to stay that way. Some paper games have been breakout successes in recent memory: for example, poker, Magic, Pokémon. These games succeed in part because they're not afraid of working with other media.

Finally, what's next for Cheapass Games? For James Ernest? Any fun projects you can let us in on?

Actually, Cheapass Games is closing down while I go make a killing in the tech world. I'd tell you what I'm working on, but then my evil overlords would have to--

Sad, but true. James Ernest has made the slow transition to digital game design, working as part of Carbonated Games, developers of the surprise hit Uno on Xbox Live Arcade. Ever the optimists, we'll trust Ernest when he says that digital games aren't a threat to the analog market, and account for his departure from non-digital design as coincidental, and nothing more.

Thanks for your time, James. And good luck with your top-secret whatevers!

Scott Jon Siegel is a game designer, and fancies himself a bit of a writer on the topic as well. His words and games can be found at numberless, which is almost always a work in progress.

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Off the Grid reviews Give me the Brain!

Scott Jon Siegel — 2007-06-01T09:58:00+00:00

Filed under: Reviews

Every other week Scott Jon Siegel contributes Off the Grid, a column on gaming away from the television screen or monitor.

James Ernest's games are nothing if not creative. Give me the Brain!, from way back in 1997, is a card game set in a fast-food joint, which just happens to exclusively employ zombies. Oh yes.

Each player acts as one such undead employee, as all players compete to be the first flesh-muncher to leave at the end of the workday. At first glance, it's a simple card game concept: the first player with no cards remaining is the winner. The catch is the brain -- there's only one of them between all of the players, and you're going to need it to get a lot of the jobs done.

In Give me the Brain!, a singular 6-sided die acts as the zombies' only source of intelligence. Rather than eating it, players bid cards to gain possession of the brain, in order to complete some of the less menial tasks like defrosting parfaits and dealing with picky customers.

Like a rotting rugby game, part of the fun comes in not just acquiring the brain, but also in holding onto it. The player in possession of the gray matter must roll it to keep it, with each thought-required job having a minimum role necessary to retain control of the organ. Meanwhile, other players can play cards to force a fumble, or otherwise gain possession of the liberated lobes.

Like a number of Cheapass Games, Give me the Brain! has humor throughout, from the fanciful illustrations of zombies with "squirrel problems," to the excellent flavor text on each card; even to the dry wit of the instruction manual. Give me the Brain! is a fun game, but also a very quick one, taking around 15 minutes to complete. Like Fluxx, strategy's not always a big factor in the short-lived gameplay, and the oft-corrupted turn order can leave some players SOL as their zombie buddies dwindle their hand sizes and move closer to victory.

Still, 15 minutes of zombie food-prep mayhem is infinitely better than none at all. Those inspired should seek it out. And don't forget to pass the brain.

Scott Jon Siegel is a fledgling game designer, and fancies himself a bit of a writer on the topic as well. His words and games can be found at numberless, which is almost always a work in progress.

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On Sony's love for pirates, Stargate and card games

Kevin Kelly — 2007-05-11T21:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Strategy, Casual

Still on the topic of card games, it's really become tough keeping track of them all. You have your TCGs (the card game), CCGs (collectible card games), and CSGs (constructible card games), not to mention the CCGs of Star Trek: TNG (The Next Generation). Probably. Whenever we sit down to play a card game, whether it be Magic: The Gathering, or the World of Warcraft card game, or even Go Fish, we get bogged down by certain rules. Printed instructions like, "Must tap to save before using. Tap once to use, or double tap to reuse. Rinse wash repeat," usually lead to arguments, fist fights, and games abandoned halfway through.

Not so with Sony Online Entertainment's new deck of PC-based card games.

Gallery: SOE's Collectible Card Games

When you play these on the PC, all the technical stuff is taken care of for you ... just like the future always promised us. Let the computer do all the work! This is especially evident in the Pirates Constructible Strategy Game, which is admittedly our favorite (you know, featuring pirates and all). In the actual version of the card game, you pop out little hard plastic pieces and build your own ships from scratch. Cool, eh? Thankfully, the computer version keeps the same gameplay, and adds in an element of sound effects, fun animation, and no more measuring out your cannon distances. Plus, they have expansion sets (included in the digital version) that feature Davy Jones, creatures and devices from the Jules Verne era, and adventure sets like the Spanish Main. It's a pirate wonderland, virtually.

In addition to the already available Star Chamber card game, Sony Online Entertainment's Denver studio just rolled out the Stargate Online Trading Card Game, which features four different starter decks, and it's as simple as drag and drop gameplay. All your favorite Stargate characters are in the game, even the traitorous Ben Browder who leapt from Farscape to Stargate in a move that sent waves through all of fandom and ... we digress.

We gave these three games a whirl recently, and were impressed with how well they handle the gameplay mechanics. Never once did we have to argue with the computer about how a certain card was played (although we did have our butts handed to us in Pirates several times). Avast me buckos, we be needin' some trainin'.

Check out the gallery of screenshots, and put your cards back in the box.

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This Wednesday: Soltrio Solitaire shuffles onto XBLA

Ludwig Kietzmann — 2007-05-11T17:04:00+00:00

Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360

As with the wildly popular Uno, Xbox Live Arcade is once again becoming a safe alternative for those that love card games but are utterly terrified of coming into contact with actual cards. This Wednesday, May 16th, sees Soltrio Solitaire sliding onto the service, offering "a collection of 18 compelling solitaire games" at 800 MS Points ($10).

We feel particularly compelled to tell you about the game's "Voyage Adventure" mode, which has you traversing a map and playing different versions of Solitaire to unlock new card designs. Naturally, no Xbox Live Arcade game is complete without mutliplayer options, and so Soltrio Solitaire defies its lineage by providing two-player cooperative and competitive modes. Why not grab a friend and spend a quiet afternoon playing virtual cards? It's not like there'll be anything else to play.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

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Off the Grid reviews Fluxx

Scott Jon Siegel — 2007-04-19T15:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Portable, Reviews, Wireless, Strategy

Every other week Scott Jon Siegel contributes Off the Grid, a column on gaming away from the television screen or monitor.

Rules are awesome. If you're a fan of games, this is an inescapable truth for you. Every game you play is comprised of a set of rules, ranging from elementary to near-incomprehensible. If it's a digital game, the rules are there; you just can't see most of them. If it's an analog game, though, it becomes your job as a player to know the rules. How else are you supposed to play?

Certain clever game designers have recognized the sheer importance of rules in game design, and have even recognized design itself as a sort of game. The result is games that are about rules - games that make and break their own rules as they're played. The most well-known of these rule-based games is Richard Garfield's Magic: The Gathering. But we're not dealing with that right now.

The most accessible of these rule-based games, however, is a little family game called Fluxx, designed by self-proclaimed hippy Andy Looney over at Looney Labs.

In Fluxx, the object of the game is to win. How you win, however, is in a constant state of, well, flux. At the start of the game, each player is dealt three cards, and a starter rule for the game placed on the table. This rule is always the same: during a player's turn he/she draws one card, and plays one card.

Players can use the cards in the game to create new objectives - called Goals - and create new rules for drawing and playing cards. The majority of Goal cards in the game involve special cards called Keepers, which players collect and play in front of them. A Goal might state that the player with both the Milk and the Cookie Keeper cards wins, or the player with both the War and Death cards wins. Winning Fluxx is a matter of timing - making sure you have the right Keepers at the right time, and being careful not to play a Goal which helps out one of your opponents.

Because of the game's unpredictability, it's just as likely that a game will take 2 minutes to play as it is that it'll take 30. Having nothing to do with skill, a player dealt the right cards at the right time can win the game in a single turn. That's not to say that the game is without strategy. A clever player can change the rules to his advantage, and hold off playing certain cards until the time is right. Still, the game can end quickly and unexpectedly, making for some pretty anti-climactic experiences.

That's why Fluxx is marketed as a family game. It's fun to play, but sometimes your 8-year-old nephew is going to beat you. When that happens, just smile and let him enjoy it; you can still kick his ass in Magic.

Scott Jon Siegel is a fledgling game designer, and fancies himself a bit of a writer on the topic as well. His words and games can be found at numberless, which is almost always a work in progress.

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UNO gets patch love for matchmaking

Ludwig Kietzmann — 2006-07-13T19:25:00+00:00

Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360

Thanks to the thunderous celebration and endless trumpeting that accompanied Microsoft's announcement of XBLA Wednesdays, not many became aware of an UNO patch sheepishly arriving on the scene. The update fixes a rather glaring fault in the game's ranked matchmaking system -- the glaring fault being that it didn't actually work.

The update (downloaded automatically next time you play) also addresses "other bugs" and improves theme deck support. Though the game remains a Joystiq favorite and is amusingly inexpensive, developer Carbonated Games still deserves a specially designed + 32 card for letting these errors slip through. We might have been more forgiving had the game supported voice recognition. Seriously, it just has to recognize one word. Just UNO.

[Via GameSetWatch]

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